Little person finds sudden reality-TV success

By RYAN CORMIERThe (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal

Wednesday

Aug 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM

It’s hard to blend in if you’re Ashley Brooks visiting your old stomping grounds in northeast Maryland and Delaware.

Brooks, 24, a little person who left her hometown of Elkton, Md., two years ago, moved to be with her girlfriend in Los Angeles not join the entertainment industry. She now co-stars on the popular Animal Planet reality television show “Pit Boss.”

So when Brooks, known for her outgoing and comical personality on the show, makes her bimonthly visits back home, people tend to notice.

“It’s kind of cool, but also kind of weird, though. People aren’t expecting to see me there because they don’t know I’m from the area,” she says. “They’ll see me and say, ‘Why are you here?’ “

The past two years have been a whirlwind for Brooks, who left home for Los Angeles to be with stuntwoman/actress Kacie Borrowman, a fellow little person she first met at a Little People of America convention.

Even though it’s her first romantic relationship with a woman, Brooks says being in a lesbian partnership while on national television has been smooth -- although it has taken her mother some time to fully accept it.

“Being a little person already and being so different already, it wasn’t that much of a deal,” she says. “I figured we’d just add it to the list of different.”

At the time of their meeting, Borrowman had been doing work for 4-foot stuntman/actor Luigi “Shorty” Rossi, 41, who runs the Venice Beach-based Shortywood Productions talent agency. It’s home base for the “Pit Boss” reality TV show.

Soon, Brooks was working for Rossi as well.

“I started doing gigs for him like being an Oompa Loompa, one of the Seven Dwarfs, a Munchkin or a Smurf,” she says. “That was cool because it was easy money, especially when I first moved to L.A. because I didn’t have a 9-to-5 job.”

Brooks then became Rossi’s receptionist and after only a couple of months of work, Rossi had announced that he had teamed up with Animal Planet for “Pit Boss,” which follows Rossi and his staff of little people as they juggle the talent agency and Rossi’s other business, Shorty’s Pit Bull Rescue.

And just like that, Brooks was a television personality.

Even though luck may have played a role in Brooks’ new career, her father has no doubt that she will make the most out of it.

“It’s turned into a great opportunity for her and knowing Ashley, she’ll take advantage of it and do really well,” says Al Brooks, who still has neighbors coming to him, asking if it’s his daughter they saw on TV. “It’s neat. We’re really proud of her.”

The show’s initial six-episode run was successful enough for the network to order a second season of 14 episodes earlier this year.

Ex-con stars

The show’s star, Rossi, is a Los Angeles native and has traveled his own strange road to television success. As a teenager, he got caught up in gangs living in South Central and was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempted murder in connection to a gang-related shooting.

He served 10 years at Folsom State Prison before being released.

Before the show came to be, Brooks would hear whispers about Rossi’s rough past, something he eventually opened up about to her about .

“I can see how you could get caught up in something and not realize what you’re doing is so bad being from that area,” she says. “It’s hard for me to believe he spent 10 years of his life in jail and see how well adjusted he is in society. To think he was cut off from everybody for 10 years, it’s pretty impressive to get out and start your own business.”

As a member of Little People of America, Brooks shares the group’s view that there’s no place for the word midget, or the m-word as she calls it, when describing little people.

And while that organization fights to break stereotypes, Brooks didn’t feel uncomfortable during her early days with Rossi working as a Munchkin or a Smurf.

“I never had that issue of people stereotyping me. I don’t think if you’re in an Oompa Loompa costume that it’s going to change anything,” she says. “I just have fun with it.”

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